Stress Management

Like snow storms in Chicago, stress can take over one’s life and definitely ruin their well-being. Annually, at some point, everyone will have a face to face encounter with stress or will have experienced one or more stressful event. Stress is related to factors that occur directly or indirectly, internally or externally in one’s life. Stress can be caused by or related to issues at work, problems in one’s relationship, family disputes, financial hardships, etc. No one person will respond to stress in the same manner. Furthermore, with that being said, no one person will overcome stress in the same manner either. There are a number of ways that people try to cope with and or manage stress in order to function on daily basis with the avoidance of anxiety or a complete breakdown, which could be detrimental.

Before one is able to manage stress, he or she must first locate and identify the source of his or her stress. The source of one’s stress is most commonly known as a stressor. Once the stressor is identified, steps should be taken to help minimize the effects of the stressor and limit its ability to disrupt one’s functionality. For example, Josh is generally stressed when he is manned with the task of writing research papers. Obviously, at this point the stressor has been identified as the research paper. Josh can alleviate the stress that is brought on by writing research papers simply by incorporating the “5 P’s” (Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance). Once the course syllabus is received and Josh notices that he has a research paper to submit, he should immediately begin preparing by finding a topic and gathering information on the topic of his choosing. Twice a week until the research paper is due for submission, Josh should work on the organization and rough draft of his paper. By the time the paper is ready for submission, Josh has managed to alleviate most of his stress by prior preparation.